My Ugly Duckling
Part Two
By GreatAngemon
I grab the doorknob to Zelda's condo, and twist it. The door opens, and I see Elisa sitting on the floor, playing with a couple of dolls. "I'm back!" I call. She looks up and smiles.
"Yink!" She rushes off the floor and jumps on me. I grab her and hold her in one of my arms. "Whacha get?" she asks.
I open the paper sack I'm carrying in my other arm and the delicious aroma of Chinese food pours over her. "Mmm…" she moans. "Yet's eat."
"Not yet," I say, setting her down. "We have to wait for your mom." We walk out into the kitchen, and I set the paper sack down and begin emptying it. Elisa keeps reaching up, trying to steal something while I'm not looking.
After a few minutes, Zelda finally walks through the door. She walks over to the counter and looks at the food. "Kung-pao chicken?" I nod. "Let's eat."
I grab some plates out of the cupboard and we all sit down at the table. Then I pull the chicken towards myself, and put some on two of the plates. I hand one to Elisa, who looks delighted. "Yummy!"She happily stabs a piece of chicken with her fork and sticks it into her mouth.
Zelda and I each grab a pair of chopsticks from the bag. As we eat the chicken, Elisa looks up at us, then says, "Why you ead wif sticks?"
Zelda and I glance at each other, smiling, and I say, "Do you want to try eating with the chopsticks?" I ask. She nods enthusiastically. "Alright, here." I hand her a pair of wrapped chopsticks.
Her smile quickly vanishes."How do I use dem?" she asks. I laugh, then move around behind her. I wrap my arms around her and help her unwrap them. Then I grab her right hand in mine, and put the sticks between her fingers.
I help her move the sticks between her fingers, and pick up a piece of chicken. She moves the chicken up to her mouth, looking proud of herself. "Loog mommy. I did id."
Zelda smiles. "Good job, sweetheart." I go back over to my seat, snap a piece of chicken up in my chopsticks, and throw it in my mouth. A moment later I turn and see Elisa stabbing her chicken on the end of her chopsticks.
After dinner, I offer to help clean, but Zelda shoos me into the living room with Elisa, and I sit on the couch while Elisa plays with her train. When Zelda comes out of the kitchen, she's on the phone, looking unhappy.
She tosses the phone onto the coffee table, and I say, "What's wrong?"
She says, "I have to go to work tomorrow. I just remembered, and I tried to get the usual babysitter, but she said she can't, so I guess she'll have to come with me."
Looking at Elisa, who doesn't seem to have heard anything, I say, "If you want, I can watch her tomorrow."
"Really?" She looks relieved. "Thanks Link. Thank you so much."
The next day I go straight to Zelda's condo at eight o'clock. When she answers the door, I see her in her usual dress of a grey pantsuit. "Thanks so much," she says, as she tries to put an earring in. "She's still asleep, but you can hang out down here till she wakes up."
"Okay," I say. "What about when she wakes up? What do I feed her?"
"There's cereal in the cupboard, if you want to go for something easy, or there're eggs in the fridge. Just do whatever you want." She grabs her briefcase off the floor. "I gotta go. Tell Elisa I say good morning."
She hurries out the door with me uttering a hasty, "goodbye", and then the door shuts. I throw myself onto the couch, flip on the TV, and watch whatever random show happens to be on.
Suddenly I find something heavy falling on my chest. I crack my eyes open, and I see Elisa sitting on me. "Good mowning, Yink," she says happily.
"Hey, Elisa," I groan. "What time is it?" She shrugs. "What do you want for breakfast?"
"Donuts!" she exclaims. "I wand donuts!" I sit up, throwing her backwards onto the couch cushion.
"Alright, donuts." Then I peer down at her. "Don't you need to take a bath, or a shower, or anything." She smiles, then stands and rushes to the stairs.
"I'll be bag in five minuds." And she rushes up the stairs. I grab my bag, which I'd thrown down next to the couch, and pull out a breath mint. A few minutes later Elisa rushes down the stairs, looking awake, and wearing a pair of shorts and a t-shirt, instead of her footie pajamas.
"Wedy!" she calls. I grab her hand, and we head out to my car. She sits in the back passenger-side seat, and I drive us downtown to one of my favorite bakeries. We head inside. When we get to the counter, my friend Peatrice smiles at me.
"Heeeey, Link," she says, batting her eyelashes at me. "What can I get for you, handsome?"
"I'll have a chocolate muffin," I say, "and-" I look at Elisa.
"I wand a donut. And choglad milg."
Peatrice looks at both of us, then says, "Link, can I talk to you?"
"Hey, Elisa, how about you go sit at that table," I say, pointing at a table that I can see easily. She runs over there, and I turn back to Peatrice. "What's up?"
"I didn't know you had a sister," she says.
"I don't."
"She's not your daughter, is she!" she exclaims.
"Hardly. I'm babysitting for a friend."
"Oh." She looks thoughtful for a moment, then says, well, I still need you to pay. That'll be nine-fifty." I give her a yellow rupee, then head over to the table.
When our food arrives, I take a bite into my warm muffin, savoring the flavor, but Elisa immediately stuffs half of her donut into her mouth. "Id good," she says through a crammed mouth. I laugh.
"I'm glad," I say, tussling her hair. We finish our food, and head out the door. "What do you want to do now?" I ask her.
"Cad we go do da pawk?"
"Alright." We hop into my car, and five minutes later we're at the park. "Have at it," I say, helping her out of the car, and letting her run towards the jungle gym. She keeps calling me, wanting me to watch her playing, and I finally find an empty seat on one of the benches. All the others were taken by mothers who were watching their own children.
One of them, a cute redhead, smiles at me. "Which one's yours?" she asks.
"None of them," I say quickly. "I'm babysitting for a friend. Her," I add, pointing at Elisa.
"Oh, so you're Elisa's friend?"
"I suppose I am that, yeah." I turn my eyes off of Elisa. "I'm Link."
"Malon. I'm Zelda's friend. That one's mine," she says, pointing to a little girl that looks just like her. Both Malon's daughter and Elisa run over.
"Mommy," the redheaded child says. "Look! Look what I finded!" and she holds out her hand. Inside is a sparkly bug.
"Pretty," Malon says. "Now how about you go let it go."
"Okay." She runs off.
"Yink, yook!" Elisa says, pointing at the lake in the middle of the park. There are several ducks swimming on it's surface. "Yet's go yook!" she exclaims, grabbing my hand and pulling me forward.
"Nice to meet you," I say, waving to Malon. She smiles. Elisa and I walk down the hill, toward the bank of the lake. One of the ducks waddles out of the water.
"Quack!" it honks. Elisa giggles, and walks slowly closer to it.
It just stares at her, until she gets about a foot away, and says, "Quack!" The bird flies away, startled.
Elisa giggles as she runs back to me. "Quack!" she keeps saying. "Quack!"
"Careful, or people'll think you're crazy," I tease. She giggles. "Well, we'd better get you back home now, my little duck. Come on." I pick her up and tickle her all the way back up to the car. Then we drive back to Zelda's condo. When we get back, Zelda's sitting at the kitchen table.
"Mommy!" Elisa runs into a hug.
"Hey sweetie," Zelda says. She looks up at me. "She wasn't too much to handle was she?"
"Nah," I say, "she was perfect." Zelda smiles. "I guess I'll go home now." I turn to walk out the door, but stop when I feel Elisa wrap her arms around me.
"Bye-bye, Yink," she says. I kneel down and give her a hug back.
"I'll see you later, little duck." She giggles again and kisses me on the cheek. I distinctly hear Zelda say, as I close the door behind me, "Little duck?"
End chapter two.